Remember that one day when you could wake up without an alarm? When you would get your favorite bowl of cereal and sit between the hours of 8 and 12? This is a blog dedicated to the greatest time of our childhood: Saturday mornings. The television programs you watched, the memories attached to them, and maybe introducing you to something you didn't realize existed. Updated every weekend.

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March 18, 2017

MINIONS CEREAL

MINIONS
CEREAL

General Mills

In 2010, Universal Pictures
and Illumination
Entertainment released what would become the first film
in a franchise: Despicable Me. The movie centered
on supervillain Gru (Steve
Carrell) who adopted three girls, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove),
Edith (Dana Gaier)
and Agnes (Elsie
Fisher), as a means to further his own sinister plans
against rival villain, Vector (Jason Segel).
But, when Vector kidnapped the girls, Gru had grown to realize he genuinely
cared for them and set out to rescue them. While the sequel, Despicable
Me 2,
would
continue the adventures of Gru and his new family, there was no doubt that the
breakout stars of the film were Gru’s little yellow minions—known as Minions
(primarily voiced by Pierre
Coffin, who also co-directed the films).

The Minions are smaller than humans,
have one or two eyes, and primarily wear goggles, overalls, boots and gloves.
They speak in nonsensical “Minionese,” derived from Bahasa Indonesia, French,
English, Italian, Spanish and Hindi, and serve only to serve someone else.
Serving as the primary comic relief of the Despicable
Me films, the Minions became the mascots for the franchise; used in
promotions, merchandise, commercials and more. In 2015, the Minions got their
own movie, Minions, which showcased
their lives just before they met Gru.

Road trip!

As part of the promotional tie-in to
the film, General Mills
acquired the license to produce a limited-edition cereal based on the
characters. Minions Cereal was a banana berry flavored cereal comprised of
square pieces with images of the primary Minions, Kevin, Stuart and Bob (who
were also featured on the box), stamped onto them (although, the stamps didn’t
always come through clearly). The flavoring, while could be said to have been
partially selected due to the Minions’ coloring, actually fit the characters’
love of fruits. While other General Mills cereals featured free Minion toys,
Minions Cereal itself had no premiums. Instead, it came with a “spot the
difference” game on the back of the box showing two images of the Minions in
New York City.